Tag: Tech Companies

Tech Companies Plan to Combat Use of Fake AI in Elections

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As the threat of fake images and videos generated by artificial intelligence (AI) could potentially play a role in the coming 2024 elections and beyond, several tech companies have pledged to use their resources to combat misinformation as a result of such technology.

According to Politico, multiple companies are planning to cooperate through a so-called “Tech Accord” dictating several key goals and methods that will be used in the fight against false AI. The companies intend to expose and debunk any “deepfake” images or videos produced by AI, through various tactics such as watermarks and automatic detection technology.

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Judge Orders Biden Administration to Limit Contact with Social Media Platforms

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A Louisiana federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Biden administration to limit its contact with social media platforms, determining that the government likely violated the First Amendment by working to censor disfavored political viewpoints online. Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump appointed U.S. District Court judge, issued a preliminary injunction barring federal officials and agencies from contacting social media firms to seek the removal of protected speech, Politico reported.

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Supreme Court Shields Tech Companies from Liability for Terrorist Content

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The Supreme Court unanimously sided with tech companies Thursday in two cases that charged them with “aiding and abetting” terrorism, declining to address a heated question on the extent of immunity granted to social media platforms for content hosted on their website.

Justice Clarence Thomas authored the majority opinion in Twitter v. Taamneh, a lawsuit brought by the family of a Jordanian citizen, Nawras Alassaf, who was killed in the January 2017 ISIS attack at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey. Thomas wrote that “plaintiffs’ allegations are insufficient to establish that these defendants aided and abetted ISIS in carrying out the relevant attack.”

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Surgeon General Demands Tech Companies Hand Over Data on COVID-19 ‘Misinformation’

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Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy sent a formal request for information Thursday to major tech companies demanding data on “misinformation” related to the COVID-19 vaccine and the virus itself, The New York Times reported.

The request demanded the companies provide data on “exactly how many users saw or may have been exposed to instances of Covid-19 misinformation,” as well as the particular demographics most affected by misleading information, according to the NYT. Murthy also reportedly demanded data on the sources of COVID-19 misinformation, particularly related to discredited treatments for the virus.

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Facebook Employees Actively Censored Conservative Websites, Even in Defiance of Managers

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A series of new leaks from Big Tech giant Facebook has revealed even more bias against conservatives from the company’s employees, even to the point of causing internal debates between employees and upper management, according to the New York Post.

The latest leaks come from message board conversations reviewed by the Post, which showed back-and-forth discussions within Facebook about how to deal with conservative news outlets during last year’s race riots by far-left domestic terrorist organizations such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa.

Some employees expressed their desire to completely remove sites such as Breitbart from Facebook’s “News Tab” feature. When one such employee asked a manager about doing so, the manager responded by pointing out that “we saw drops in trust in CNN 2 years ago,” before rhetorically asking “would we take the same approach for them too?”

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Taking Down Pro-Life Websites, Donating to Planned Parenthood: How Tech Companies Are Fighting Texas’ Abortion Law

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Several major tech companies spoke out against the Texas Heartbeat Act, taking down pro-life websites and funding out-of-state abortions.

The “Texas Heartbeat Act” enacted May 19, prohibits abortions after the unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable, with exceptions for medical emergencies. The law includes a provision providing a civil cause of action to sue a person who “knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion,” and may result in a plaintiff receiving $10,000 or more for each abortion found to be in violation of the law.

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States, Not Congress, Could Pose the Biggest Threat to Tech Companies

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Despite calls for increased regulation of the tech industry, Congress has yet to pass any major legislation, leaving it up to the states to take action curbing tech companies’ power and influence.

Meanwhile, state legislatures have introduced and enacted legislation on data privacy, antitrust, and content moderation, while state attorneys general have issued a number of legal challenges alleging anticompetitive business practices.

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Commentary: Big Tech’s Bid for One-Party Rule Could Result in Over Regulation

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by Robert Romano   The Wall Street Journal is reporting that momentum is building for the U.S. government to subject Google and other Big Tech firms to antitrust scrutiny for fears that they have become too big and too powerful. In today’s digital ecosystem, politicians, political parties, organizations and media all rely on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google and Youtube to get the message out because that’s where consumers by and large go to in order to consume information. A Pew report found 68 percent of adult Americans use Facebook, or over 170 million. 24 percent use Twitter, or about 61 million. A separate Pew report found 73 percent, or 185 million, use broadband internet. Statista reports that Google’s family of sites are the most popular in America, with 255 million unique U.S. visitors in March 2019 alone. So, the internet is indisputably a huge part of the way people are getting information nowadays. Now, conservatives and Republicans have become alarmed as many of these platforms are censoring and restricting speech that does not coincide with Big Tech’s social justice agenda. Deplatforming is real. Actor James Woods has been censored on Twitter, Stephen Crowder has been demonetized on…

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